Why spend money acquired from taxpaying U.S. citizens for structures that are ugly and not energy efficient? Why create more eyesore buildings?
People would become more visually oriented and creative if they could see beautiful structures that open their eyes to intense interrelations of beauty and nature. If systems thinking was applied to design then there would be more opportunity to cultivate and nurture the seeds of creativity.
Especially when the construction project is a taxpayer-funded project, it should be designed and built to the highest standards of architectural and engineering felicity. Let federal and state sponsored building be the very best examples of American architecture.
Think of the massive structures that we travel the globe to see — the cathedrals of France, Potala palace in Lhasa, castles on the Rhine, Angkor Wat, Borobudur, the Pantheon in Rome, Teotihuacan and countless other ancient cities in Mexico, the temples of Athens, the pyramid tombs of Egypt, the Taj Mahal, the Great Wall of China. These were public works projects or symbols of private enterprise in their day. If visionary builders and paymasters centuries ago hadn’t constructed pleasing and durable buildings, there would be no residual evidence of their creative effort and social systems.
Architecture — that which remains after the floods, hurricanes, tornados, wars and fire. It provides specific and concrete evidence of how a society functioned, what it valued, how the humans prospered or failed, what was valuable to them.
Would you describe any of these taxpayer financed buildings as lasting esthetic monuments to freedom and creative enterprise?
Maybe the ugly building penalty tax has a place in our culture?
Adventure Travel Writer 